A.P. To Launch Road Grid Project With Rs.3,184-cr Allocation

Mar 11, 2016

63 views

The Andhra Pradesh Government has taken up an ambitious project of developing a road grid across the State. The project envisages connecting the gram panchayats with mandal headquarters through all-weather roads and the mandal headquarters would be connected to the respective district headquarters with two-lane roads. The district headquarters, in turn, would be connected to each other with four / two-lane roads and they would be connected to the State Capital through four / six-lane roads.

All the major ports, tourist places, industrial hubs and airports would be connected to the nearest national highways with two lane roads, Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu announced. With the efforts made by the State Government, the Central Government had declared the roads from Kurnool and Anantapur to Amaravati as national highways and these roads would provide faster connectivity between Rayalaseema region and the proposed capital city.

The Government had provided Rs.3,184.25 crore for strengthening the road network in the State while separate provision would be made for rural roads under the Panchayat Raj Department. The Government had also embarked upon the fibre grid project laying optic fibre cable network across the State providing 10 to 15 MBPS connectivity. The project was started with an outlay of Rs.320 crore and impressed by the initiative, the Centre had sought the State's support for implementing similar projects across the country.

Another key sector, according to Mr. Ramakrishnudu, was the housing sector which was expected to generate four jobs for every Rs.One lakh invested. Every rupee invested in housing sector would add Rs.1.54 to the GSDP and together with household expenditure it could go upto to Rs.2.84. The Government had accordingly allocated Rs.1,132.83 crore for the Housing sector for the next financial year with focus on weaker section housing programme.

“We intend to resort to extra-budgetary resource mobilisation by the Housing Corporation in partnership with the Central Government and housing and infrastructure financial institutions.

The Health sector too received due importance with the Government making allocation of Rs.6,103.76 crore with Plan component of the budget enhanced to Rs.2,933.73 crore from the Rs.1,986.80 crore of the previous financial year.